Living On A Prayer

Four Choirs And Counting!

At the time of writing I am leading four choirs – the original New Community Choir based at Graylingwell Chapel in Chichester is the “mothership” with a membership of close to 200 people and an average attendance of 140 people.

The journey along the way has been interesting to say the least! Since we began three and a bit years ago, we have grown rapidly, but also lost quite a few choir members along the way. People leave for a variety of reasons. But we have found that the main reason people move on is because they find the choir too big. It can be unwieldy and difficult to manage, even with the dedicated team of volunteers we have running the choir.

Other people love the fact that we have purposefully grown a large choir to build a community that goes beyond the core purpose of “singing”. Our philosophy has always been to create a caring environment where people can leave the stresses and strains of life at the door, and hopefully, not pick them up again when they leave. There is something very healing and therapeutic about singing with other people. You share a common purpose, devote yourself to reaching a goal and help others along the way at the same time.

I launched Community Choirs UK to achieve the same results, but with fewer people in each choir. I will be capping membership at 50 or 60 people depending on the location. So we can achieve all of the above, but also focus more specifically on working with smaller groups of people to enable them to achieve

The Most Surprising People Join In!

The mix of people in our choirs is amazing. But for me, the most surprising and encouraging is the fact that we have highly accomplished classical singers standing amongst other who feel that they have no singing ability whatsoever. To watch this mix of people from different social backgrounds singing Bon Jovi’s “Living On A Prayer”, is an astounding thing!

If you are not part of a Community Choir yet, why not join one of our choirs. Please bear in mind that our large choir at Graylingwell, Chichester is not taking new members at the moment as we have capped the membership.